Do you need more money? Do you have debts to pay? Would you like to contribution more to your retirement? Are you sick and tired of the same cost of living raise? One of the best answers to improving your financial picture is merely to make more money.

The easiest way to make more money is to increase your salary at your current job. Imagine, if you earn $50,000 per year and receive a 10% raise, instantly you walk out of the office that day making an extra $5,000 a year or $416 more every month.

Getting a raise is cinch if you employ the correct strategies. The secret is that employers pay you what you will accept, not what you are worth. Some small adjustments to your work habits can mean the difference between a substantial raise and promotion or that old cost of living raise.

Tips to increasing your salary

Really show up for work – No, I don’t mean to not call out absent. I mean to go all out at work everyday. Maintaining a positive attitude is the key. Most employee’s trudge lifelessly though the day barely doing the minimum. A winner at his or her job goes to work with a passion that everyone can see. If you don’t feel passion about your current job, you have two choices, either you find a new job or fake it until you make it.

Answer some key questions – Most employees work on what they feel needs to be done, but the secret to a raise is to see through the eyes of your boss.

Ask yourself these questions every day:

What does my boss feel is the most important thing for me to do today?

What will show my boss that I am committed to the team?

What would my boss feel are my strengths and how can I apply them to my work?

How can I help my boss look good to their superiors?

Focus on the wildly important – Develop a list of the five wildly important tasks to complete today. A wildly important task is those things that help accomplish your boss’s mission. The idea is not to work yourself to death, but to use Pareto’s Law to identify the 20% of the tasks that create 80% of the results.

Talk to your boss about your intent to increase your salary – Your boss should view this desire positively because they have the same desire. Ask your boss how you can achieve a 10% raise. Find out what are your boss’s goals and align your goals to theirs. If you help your boss achieve a raise or promotion, you are the obvious choice to follow them up the latter.

Commit to a written raise strategy – Write a "Get a Raise" action plan. This action plan should contain all of the tasks and projects that will help you towards your goals. Every day, finish at least one high value task before getting caught up in the day.

Keep a Scoreboard - Keep track of the high value projects completed and the results achieved. Tracking the results creates an effective tool to selling your value. For example, instead of general statements like "improved sales process", you make a powerful statement by saying "improved sales process that increase quote conversion from 18% to 48% totaling $500,000 in additional sales". Your scoreboard will open your superior’s eyes to how much you are worth.

Using this process will get you the raise that you rightly deserve, but don’t rest on your laurels once you receive that terrific raise. Instantly, restart this process and strive towards that next raise. If this process does not get you a terrific raise, you can take your skill to a company that will respect and appreciate them.